


You Will Know When It's Time

by CinnamonrollStark



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Evil Tony Stark, Family, Family Feels, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Marvel Universe, Multiverse, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Protective Peter Parker, Saving the World, Superior Iron Man Fix-It, Time Travel, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 19:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonrollStark/pseuds/CinnamonrollStark
Summary: When approached by Doctor Strange, Peter is given the opportunity to find Mr. Stark in another universe and bring him back to his own- but he doesn't entirely agree with the motives to do so.





	You Will Know When It's Time

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this forever, but only noe have the time (a yellowjacket stung me in my jugular vein (long story)) and so I'm kind of bedridden for a while and and writing in the time that I've got to do so. I'll be fine though, no worries!

Peter remembered the days of peace, long before his world shattered. How simplicity could surround him and become him- how dearly he missed it. Black was black and white was white; four walls made a room. Dead was dead.

 And then it wasn't, not really. Walls were merely manifestations of fear, a settled idea of safety for those who craved it. Colors were what you made them. And death, was never truly death.

  _Gods don't die._

 The world made sense yesterday. Of course, it was a horrible, painful sort of understanding, a knowledge of greif and mourning that Peter had tried so hard to ward off. But that discomfort had, at the very least, a name. It had solid edges, built sturdy, a room to be locked in as you dissolved and reformed once again. Those edges, the only thing he really had to grasp on to, to chain him to reality and steal him away from the abyss. They were the first to go.

 A hurricane swept him away, further and further from what he knew to be true. The dizzying torrent of thick, watery confusion caused him to stumble on the way to the bathroom. "Penis Parker's a lightweight." chanted Flash from the gaudy couch in the living room. A few, scattered laughs here and there. Accurate as his statement was, Peter was certainly not drunk enough to have confused reality so wholly. Some fruity, mixed drink made its reappearance as he toppled from the bathroom door and to the sink. 

 A pair of half-dresses teenagers emerged from behind a shower curtain and fled the room as he vomited.  _It's not real, it can't be._ He tried to convince himself that he was imagining things- he had to be, hadn't he? That would make things so much simpler. It would be lovely were this to all be a result of a lack of sleep. He could go home to May, tonight, smelling of sick and alcohol, and would cry in her shoulder. She would tell him it would be okay- and inevitably ground him. This could just be associated with his greif, yet another mental breakdown. This wouldn't be the first time. 

 Peter knew a trick when he saw one. An illusion, targeting him and those he'd loved- he learned that the hard way. The mist of green, and a figure, a shadow in the darkness. He'd experienced it in a blur, of dumbfounded bliss. Naivety, so innocent and wonderful, had lead to such pain in the long run. Peter would know, if that was what this was.

  _Playboy, philanthropist, billionare- and immortal, I guess._

 Another wave of nausea roiled through his skin, and he heaved. A door closed behind him. Without looking, Peter sensed that it was Ned.

 "Hey, hey." Ned set a hand on his shoulder. "Breathe, okay? We don't even know if it's real yet, right?"

 With a tremendous amount of effort, Peter lifted his head from the porcelain. He wiped his lower lip and grimaced. "It's real. It's got to be." His voice, butchered, throat burning. "It's him, Ned."

 Something changed in his tone- not so much desperation as fear. He sucked in a breath and held it, tight lipped. His friend sunk against the closed door and lowered himself to a seat on the tile. 

 "But how do you know?" 

 It was a good question. There was no defining reason as to why he was so sure of the truthfulness of the news reports, the videos; with technology reaching it's peak, there was a very real possibility that this was some imposter. But Peter knew better, and there was no way to explain this to Ned without sounding insane. 

 "I mean, he looked different, right?"

 Peter nested his legs against one another, a cross cross of thighs and calves and tennis shoes. He nodded, a curl toppling from its place on the top of his head. His eyes met his friend's slowly, unsure. 

 "Yeah."

 "So it could be someone else, right?"

 Peter shook his head. "I don't understand how I know- but I do. That's him. It might not be  _our_  him, but it's... I don't know, I guess. But he's real."

 Ned pulled out his phone from his back pocket, dialed the passcode and studied a photo on the screen. He zoomed in and shrugged. "I mean, it really does look like him. But the eyes- they're blue, right? Weren't his-"

 "Brown." Peter hadn't noticed this before, and he snatched the phone away for himself. Just seeing the face- not one of the thousand photos he found himself looking at when he missed him so- made his stomach turn in a mix of fear and sorrow. Same slope of the nose, graying hair, iconic facial hair- certainly a version of Tony Stark. But Ned was right, there was something absolutely different about him. Sharp, pricing blue irises. Glowing, even, an unnatural light that seemingly emitted from his pores. A different suit; a recognizable structure, but a hue entirely different. Silver. 

 "I didn't see that before."

 Ned scratched his wrist and looked at the floor. Peter knew how talking about Tony effected him; most times he could hardly get through a conversation about Stark without getting at the very least slightly emotional, and he was certain it made Ned uncomfortable. Although, to an extent, a friend's purpose was to comfort and be there for the other, to have a continuous stream of greif and numbness- no one would want to put up with that for long.

 "Have you talked to his family?"

 Peter bit the inside of his cheek. Part of him stung, as if Ned had just delivered him a heavy blow. Peter felt like family, even if that sounded silly or preposterous to others. But he had a point.

 "No one has gotten back to me about it. I mean, it just happened, Ned."

 "Yeah, still."

 A knock at the door. "If you guys are going to hook up can you do it in one of the bedrooms? I have to piss."

 Flash. Peter looked up and rolled his eyes. On the other side of the door, Flash nodded awkwardly at a teen that passed him by- a cute girl around his age. "I'm cool with it. I'm an ally."

 She ignored him and kept walking. The door swung open, and on the other end stood Peter, recovered, now, from the episode. He glared as Flash passed him by and made his way to the toilet. 

  _Don't know why you're so upset, Parker. There's no way you even met the guy._

 Every time they were in the same room, Peter felt hurt once again by the boy- Pete had a good twenty pounds on him, and was taller, so in all logistics, Flash never should've ended up as his bully, but his blows were not passed in physical violence. His words hurt more than Peter wanted to admit. Things that ordinary bullies said to ordinary targets- but it stung Peter so deeply. And, as of recent months, his methods had been especially cruel. 

 The butt of every joke was Iron Man. Tony Stark. The man that Peter looked up to more than any other person; the person he felt so close to, like a son to a father- and Flash knew what he meant to him. He used the man as lighter fluid as he fanned the flames of Peter's greif. 

It took everything in him not to turn back and punch him as Flash emptied his bladder. Ned could feel the heat rising in Peter's skin and grabbed his arm, tugging him away. He bit his lip in restraint and let out a sigh of relief as Ned closed the door behind them. 

 "Hey. Okay, look, do you want to be distracted by guys like Flash- or do you want to get to the bottom of this thing?"

 Peter brushed his curls back and bit his cheek. His mind raced with the thoughts of this new version of a man he cared so deeply for. If he truly were Tony, would he remember him? Was he the same man? He surely recalled his death- 

_I cheated death, what else is new?_

 -but something was so off about him. Tony Stark was a somewhat arrogant man, at least, in his less than humble beginnings. But the man on TV, on all news channels that premiered the video, which had now gone viral, was in no was the same one he knew. This... character's demeanor was off. Tony Stark, but not Tony Stark.

 "You wanna be mad at him, Peter?" Asked Ned, again. "Because if you do? That's okay. And if you want to find this guy, find out if he's really iron man." He paused for emphasis. "That's okay too. So what do you want to do?"

Peter sucked in a breath and swallowed. He hardly had the time to answer when the bathroom door opened and slammed in between his shoulder blades. Flash brushed past them, avoiding Peter's glare. 

When he was gone, Pete caught Ned's eye. "I don't have the energy to be mad. And this- Mr. Stark, whatever version of him that he is- we need to get to the bottom of it."

He paused as he tried to wrap his head around it all. "Okay. Okay, get your stuff- I need my guy in the chair."

 □□□

Peter leaned against the rigid softness of the pillows, evening light filtering in through the window. Outlines of branches and leaves cast shadows on his legs. His laptop sat, balanced, against his crossed knees. 

The video was flashing across the screen- the same he'd watched and rewatched countless times in the last hour since he got home. 

_"Seven months after his tragic death, hero and icon, Tony Stark, has seemingly come back to life."_

Pictures flooded the screen, some from charity events, some from press junkets- one of the two of them, another of the Stark family.

 _"His suprising entrance was nothing less than that we would have expected of the man."_ The footage of that afternoon, the swirling black above traffic, a hole in the atmosphere. The slow descent of a figure, clad in a silver and blue suit. 

_"Iron Man quite simply appeared out of thin air in front of half the city, early this evening. When questioned on his reappearance, Stark was nothing less than his usual, quippy personality."_

A close up of Tony- who ever this impression of the man must have been. The camera, squaring off everything above his hair and below his shoulders.

_"What can I say? I mean, what did you expect, for me to stay dead? I mean- I'm Tony Stark. Playboy, philanthropist, billionare- immortal, I guess. You know, fifteen years ago, everyone thought I was dead in a cave in the middle east. World's tried to kill me a dozen times, but it never works, does it. I cheated death, what else is new?"_

It bothered Peter how everything about him was so real- the same eyes, dark hair that was becoming a bit more salt than pepper as of late. More than illusion, to that conclusion, Peter had come to earlier in their searching. Certainly a physical thing- but lacking a spark with which he'd become so accustomed to.

His finger's found the flatness of the glass screen and rubbed at the soft corners of the man depicted within the pixels.

"He's different," muttered Peter, pushing his laptop to the foot of the bed. He glanced at his friend who sat on the floor beside the desk, fiddling with the latch on a drawer. 

"It's not just the suit and the eyes- when I look at him..." Peter strayed back to the image on the computer, and felt his heart sink with a mix of worry and sadness. "Something's wrong with him. Here, come look at this."

Peter moved the cursor to the bottom of the video and dragged it to just before Stark's comments. "Watch his eyes," Narrated Peter, as Tony's face came in to view.

_"What can I say? I mean, what did you expect, for me to stay dead?"_

He paused the video. "Look at that. Do you see how he's smiling with his mouth and not his eyes? You see it too, right?"

Ned studied the freeze frame and inhaled through his nose as he concentrated. "Yeah, actually."

"I mean, like, I get how other people might not notice it, but that? There's... Ned, there's something very wrong with this guy. This isn't Tony."

"I thought you said it was?"

Peter looked back at the face on the laptop and felt a pang of guilt as he recalled the many smiles and joyous moments the two had once shared; never, in that time, has he looked at him with such deadened eyes. "No, I was wrong."

He stood, holding up an index finger as if to summon silence until his return. He opened a drawer to Ned's left, and dug through it until he found the slightly bent photograph. It was a bit yellow with time, dog-eared by accidental overcrowding in the small desk. Peter held it out to Ned, who took it. 

"Maybe it's silly," said Peter, voice cracking with emotion. "But I knew his smile, Ned. I knew his smile- and that just isn't it."

The photograph in Ned's hand was of Peter, Tony, and Pepper on a camping trip. Bright, glinting eyes- a profile veiw of a grin, smile lines curved over his cheekbones.

The boy looked up again to the moniter, comparing the two photographed smiles. It only took him a moment to decide the same. "You're right."

"I am?"

"I think so. I mean, you knew him better than most people right?"

Peter cleared his throat, trying not to think about it- about the way Tony felt like his father, like his friend- in a world so lacking of the two. Every time it filled his mind, he teared up. Now was not the time for tears.

A knock at the door. The two of them glanced up as golden light filled the room. "Hey guys," said May, pajama clad. She gave them a slightly wary smile. "You have a visitor." A side look at Ned. "Uh, well, technically, Peter has a visitor."

Peter's throat constricted. It couldn't be him- not yet. There was no way. And if Tony remembered him- what if he was wrong? What if he was all off, and Ned was just agreeing with him to make him feel better.

For a moment, cast in shadow by the tall frame of his Aunt, the figure that approached them entirely resembled that of Stark, although, perhaps a bit taller. May stepped to the side, revealing him.

"Parker." Strange glanced over at Peter's friend, and his brow furrowed. "Kid in the game of thrones shirt."

Peter swallowed, undoubtedly a bit relieved. He wasn't too fond of Stephen, had a few, very large bones to pick with the man, but truthfully, it was easier to talk to him than a ghost.

"He can stay."

Doctor Strange shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't allow that."

A swirl of the wrist, sparks of yellow surrounding Ned's seated frame; he fell through the portal without a sound.

"Hey!" Shouted Peter, outraged. "Where the hell did you put him?"

"On the couch in the living room. No worries there- his family is about to have spaghetti. I'd be more concerned for yourself than your friend."

Peter glared- he truly didn't like this man. Maybe he reminded him too much of Tony. Maybe it was easier to look away than to remember. "Yeah?" Spat Peter, standing from the bed, trying his best to seem taller in front of the wizard. 

"Why's that?"

"Because he's looking for you." Said Strange, matter of factly. "He's looking for all of you- and God help you if he finds you. Which is why I need your help in stopping him."

Peter's mouth was suddenly very dry, beneath caught in his throat. "Him, as in-"

"Yes," said Strange. "But not as you remember him."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment and tell me what you think!


End file.
